The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

Head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU], Oleksandr Chernenko believes that the optimum election threshold for the parliamentary elections would be 4%. Any higher is discriminatory, he said at a press conference on Monday, with parties receiving 4% of the votes deserving representation.

Mr Chernenko also considers that the prohibition on blocs participating in the parliamentary elections does not meeting the standards required for democratic elections. The problem should be regulated through legislation with additional norms introduced forcing parties to think about whether it is expedient to create such blocs.

CVU, he added, is in favour of increasing the period of the election campaign to 90, if not 120 days, since it is impossible to hold a normal and fully-fledged election campaign for parliamentary elections in 60 days.

Mr Chernenko believes that in majority constituencies in the regions an informal election campaign has already begun. He says that candidates who intend to stand for election in majority constituencies are already holding negotiations.

On the other hand, the election campaign will unofficially beginning in September of this year when political forces begin forming their headquarters. The intensive campaign, however, will commence from March 2012.

The Director of Political-Legal Programmes for the Razumkov Centre, Yury Yakymenko believes that raising the election threshold to 5 % would not be a problem since the main political players have the chance to achieve this, including the Front for Change, Strong Ukraine, VO Svoboda and the Communist Party. While the party of Vitaly Klichko is growing in popularity and could also cross this barrier, the bloc of V. Lytvyn, the present Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada is losing its position.

Mr Yakymenko believes that discussion in parliament about the election threshold will be open when considering the law on the parliamentary elections. At the same time other more important issues, including the formation of electoral commissions will be decided behind the scenes.